Arming Oneself
by CultOfStrawberry
Summary: Had things been different, Ming-Hua might have chosen another path in her life. But it is said that the things we go through shape us into the people we are...
1. Chapter 1

**Arming Oneself**

o0o0o0o

There are times when Ming Hua vividly remembers her arms. Over the years, she'd more than compensated for her lack of arms with her Bending, doing far more than people who possessed arms of flesh and bone. Yet, such arms had once been part of her, and like anyone else who has ever lost a limb, there is that feeling of missing something.

This feeling does not come on her often, but she does have her moments of regret and sadness, wondering if, had she still had her original arms, would she have joined the Red Lotus?

o0o0o0o

For as long as she could remember, her life was fraught with one difficulty after another. She'd been born in the Northern Water Tribe, but her father, the youngest son of a large family, had not much to expect in the way of inheritance, and unfortunately, in a family where most of his siblings seemed to be smarter or more talented than him.

To escape the shadow of his family, he'd moved himself, his wife, and young daughter to the northern part of the Great Continent, hoping to use his skills as a Waterbender to better support himself and his family in a place where Waterbenders were a lot less common – and therefore, hopefully more valuable.

Unfortunately, he'd escaped one shadow only to place himself under another. As a stranger in a strange land, dealing with customs different than the ones he'd come from, and having a mild personality on top of that, made it too easy for him to be a victim. There are always those in every place who are quick to take advantage of newcomers, and her father had the unfortunate luck to attract such people.

It cost him his life, and his poor luck passed down to his wife. Pregnant at the time, the stress of her husband's death caused her to miscarry, and she nearly died for it. Ming Hua remembered taking care of her after finding her curled up on the floor with blood on the floor and soaking her dress and thighs. Money was tight for a while, and she had even had to go out on the streets, begging for money, but she did what she had to.

Fortunately, her mother made a recovery. She even found a job as a maid for one of the wealthier citizens of the city, and for a little while, things were good. They didn't have to go begging at the marketplace at the end of the day for discards from the grocers, or beg the neighbors for old clothing or scraps, or fret over making the rent to be able to stay in the tenements they lived in. They were far from wealthy of course, but for the first time since her father's death, Ming-Hua felt hopeful for her future.

o0o0o0o

Her mother finally saved enough money to move them to a better place. The new place was still considered 'poor' but there were no rats or cockroaches, and for one woman and her daughter, the two small but clean rooms were more than enough to suit their needs. Wanting a better future for her daughter, Ming-Hua's mother spent some of her hard-earned money to send her to a better school.

Even then, Ming Hua knew she was poor. At home, she didn't think about it, since she and her mother had what they absolutely needed, and compared to their dire situation before, that was enough. She studied, did her assignments, helped her mother around the house, and when she had time, practiced her Waterbending.

Without a father to teach her, and her mother too poor to afford any more education than she already had, Ming-Hua had to teach herself. Her mother did her best to encourage her, remembering what she'd seen in the North Pole, trying to describe this or that move to her, but since Mother wasn't a Bender, a verbal description only went so far.

Ming-Hua absolutely loved the element. She enjoyed school, but she enjoyed her Bending more, however amateurish she might be. There was a simple joy to feeling and manipulating her element, and what she lacked in sophistication, she made up for in enthusiasm.

o0o0o0o

Her life would change one day in a way that would have lasting repercussions to herself and those around her. Very well aware of what happened to her father despite her relatively young age when he'd died, she saw the contrast between rich and poor as clearly as anyone else would see night and day.

There was one boy at school who was the son of a well-off grocer. His name was Yinrong. He always had nice clothing, coins in his pocket, and an entitled attitude. He believed himself to be better than anyone who was not as well-stationed as him, but Ming-Hua ignored him as she would anyone else who would make fun of her well-worn clothes or simple lunches her mother wrapped in cloth. Mother always said that it was character that gave a person worth, not money.

One day, she was on her way home from school. That part of the city was being developed, and there was a relatively new innovation called electricity, which gave way to all sorts of things like telegraphs and light bulbs.

The school building had been fitted with wiring and light bulbs several months ago, which made reading much easier on dark and cloudy days, and also did well to illuminate the hallways. She liked the lights and how they illuminated otherwise dark spaces. If she had such bulbs at home, studying at night would be so much easier especially during winter. Fuel for lamps was expensive for people like her or her mother, and candles were not very good light for reading, or sewing, something her mother – and sometimes Ming-Hua herself – did at home to earn extra income.

She was passing by a construction site when she heard her name yelled. She turned to see her familiar nemesis with several of her friends, and rolled her eyes, deciding to just move on. She continued walking, and heard her name yelled again.

"Hey, little bitch! Don't think you're too good for me!" The voice was much closer, and she turned in alarm to see the small group of boys advance towards her.

"I am going home to study," she said resolutely before she resumed her walking, now moving at a much more brisk pace. Unfortunately, this tactic did not work, and despite her breaking into a run, the boys were upon her, dragging her away. The construction site was an all too easy spot to conceal whatever it was they might want to do to her, and she felt her heart pound in terror. She tried to Bend, hoping there was water nearby that would respond to her command, but the boys had her arms twisted painfully behind her back.

"When one of your betters addresses you, you should know better than to walk away," her tormentor said as he stood in front of her, his arms crossed as his cronies restrained her. She glared at him. He was a handsome boy of about twelve or thirteen, and she knew he was popular among the girls.

"You're not better than me," she shot back angrily. "You're nothing but a bully!"

"Big talk from a poor orphan."

"I'm not one!"

"Your father is dead, isn't he?"

"I have my mother!" She wiggled against the boys holding her, trying to twist her arms free of their grip, but unfortunately the boys were considerably bigger than she, especially given her wiry build.

"I bet you're a bastard!" one of the boys said.

"Haha, you're probably right!" Yinrong said with a cruel smirk. "I heard poor people breed indiscriminately like rats, spitting out baby after baby, and..."

"Stop!" she screamed, recalling her mother crying and clutching her stomach with the blood pooled around her feet, and the misshapen lump of flesh that had come along with the blood. She tried her best to stop herself, but she felt tears breaking free.

She could sense water nearby, but there was no way for her to Bend it without the use of her arms, and she suspected that was why she was being restrained in such a fashion.

"Let's see what's under these clothes. I hear poor girls are eager for that kind of thing and have no self-control."

Her eyes widened in horror at the implication. Not yet a teenager, she still knew the mechanics of intercourse and what happened between a man and a woman, her mother had given her the talk several months ago along with explaining about moon-time, to prepare her daughter for the inevitability of puberty. Add to that the sounds she sometimes heard from adjoining units in the building, and she had a pretty firm grasp of just how Yinrong could hurt her.

Fortunately for her, her legs were not restrained, and she started kicking fiercely as Yinrong came within reach.

"You!" he said, beckoning to the fourth boy, who had so far managed to stay behind. Ming-Hua recognized him and wondered what he was doing here. He was definitely better off than her, but not as well-off as Yinrong. He'd never given her any trouble in the past.

The boy stepped forward, and Ming-Hua sensed he was uncomfortable. She looked at him with pleading eyes, hoping he would be her savior, though she knew the chance was slim – he was the smallest in the group, and Yinrong and his two friends would be easily able to give this boy a beat-down.

"Help me take off her shoes and pants!" Yinrong commanded him.

"Isn't this going too far?" the boy – was his name Ren or Wen, she tried to recall – asked.

"Shut up and do as you're told, or I will tell my father that I saw your father skimming money out of the cash-box at the store. Isn't your mom real sick? Gee, I'd hate to imagine what would happen if your father were to lose his job..."

_That explains_ _it_, Ming-Hua mused sourly. Wen, or Ren, stepped forward, his eyes on the ground. Even though the smaller boy was not exactly forthcoming with his effort, Yinreng was still able to remove her shoes and pants, leaving her in her underwear, short dress, and jacket. She looked around, finally screaming for help.

Suddenly, one of her socks was stuffed into her mouth, and she made muffled mewling noises as she looked at Wen pleadingly. He refused to make eye contact, and without the ability to form words, she couldn't make any pleas.

Fortunately, when the time cane to divest her of the rest of her clothing, she had a window of escape. To remove her jacket meant letting go of at least one arm at a time, and she acted quickly, lifting up her free fist to punch the boy holding her other arm before Yinrong could pull her arm from the sleeve.

She broke free of the group and ran without thinking. She felt rock and earth under her feet, as well as paved concrete in one area, as she blindly ran for refuge and safety among the building supplies and half-built structure.

It was starting to get dark on this late autumn day, and she was thankful for the cover as she hid behind this or that, hearing her name being called out. Yinrong and his two friends were looking for her, she knew it. She hoped that Wen went for help. _Spirits, please._

If she could slip away from the site without being noticed, this would end. Her heart thudded as she came up against a completed wall. There were no windows on this side, and the unfinished door was barricaded with more equipment, presumably to keep people from sneaking in. She'd also made the mistake of running in the opposite direction of the water she'd sensed before, and she wasn't anywhere near proficient enough to Bend from this distance. She pulled the sock from her mouth and took a deep breath, catching her wind.

In the semidarkness, she saw coils of black wire, and though the sight was partially obscured by bags of concrete and stacks of brick, she recognized a power box. She'd seen several of those before, and knew these were responsible for the light that shone from the bulbs, and what enabled the telegraphs to send their messages.

Footsteps were heard from behind her, and she stifled a gasp as she scrambled forward, desperate to escape her tormentors and a fate that any girl – poor or rich – dreaded.

In doing so, she traded one danger for another. At that time, nearly thirty years ago, the dangers of electricity were not as well-known. Those responsible for installing and maintaining the power boxes, wires, and systems were aware of what electricity could do to the human body. However, the phenomena of harnessing electricity for personal use was still relatively new, so the ordinary person was not likely to know the dangers presented by this seemingly innocuous discovery. Consequently, equipment such as this power box didn't have protective panels or off-switches, or anything else that would serve as a buffer between a person and the incredible power that surged through the circuits. Not an issue for someone who knew their way around such devices, but unfortunately, she was not such a person.

She yelled as her collar was grabbed by Yinrong.

"Hey, we need some light in here!" he said. One of his friends Bended a flame from his palm, and Ming-Hua gave out an alarmed cry. This couldn't be happening, could it?

"Please, let me go! This is wrong!"

"What would a poor street rat know about decency?" he sneered. That stung her pride. Her mother didn't like the word poor, and would tell her that there was no reason to call herself poor when all of her needs were being met.

Mihg-Hua kicked him, and he gave out an angry shout and shoved her, causing her to stumble. She saw the box in front of her, and threw her hands in front of herself. As soon as her hands touched the cold metal of the device, she wanted to scream, but the pain and shock of it stole her voice away, and as she would soon discover, much more than that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Arming Oneself**

II

o0o0o0o

What happened next was a series of flashes. Yinrong and his two friends looking at her with horror and shock as she lay on the ground, trying to get up, _why won't her arms move_? A piteous whine escaped her throat, but no one moved forward. The three boys started whispering to one another.

_She's going to die, no one can live like that!_

_Are you sure? Shouldn't we get a doctor, or..._

_No! Think about what will happen to us!_

… _Oh._

_Yes. Best to leave her, she will die soon enough._

She was left in the darkness, her arms numb, her shoulders burning. She tried to move, but was too weak. Then there was Wen, with an older man, someone she'd seen on the street a couple of times before.

_Thy took her in here, and..._

_I see. The injuries are severe, but you just might have saved her life. Stay with her, and I will get a medic._ The man draped his coat across her, before he left. Wen sat next to her, his eyes filled with horror and regret.

_I'm so sorry, Ming-Hua. I didn't think they would... this..._

She couldn't answer. She wanted to speak, but she was too much in shock. What happened to her? She couldn't remember any more after hearing Wen's words.

o0o0o0o

The smell of bleach was the first thing she registered as she drifted to consciousness, and she opened her eyes to bright light. Hadn't she been in a dark place before?

She tried to get up, but there was something wrong. Something... missing. She wasn't quite sure, and tried to get up again. A frustrated whine escaped her throat as she squirmed around in the bed, unused to the lingering effects of morphine, which made her feel... Well, not quite numb, but it almost felt as if she was floating somewhere near her body.

She lay her head back on the pillow, hearing footsteps in the hallway. She knew where she was, her mother had been in a hospital several years ago after the miscarriage.

Yinrong. She remembered what he tried to do, and what happened. Well, she was in a hospital, so she must be all right, then? She was safe and warm, so Yinrong couldn't hurt her anymore. She kept telling herself that, but as she slowly drifted into a clearer state of mind, she became more and more aware that something was wrong.

She turned her head, seeing bandages around her shoulder. She'd been placed in a hospital smock that was a bit too big for her, so she could see the bandages within the open collar of the smock. The bandages seemed to wrap around her entire upper torso, and she recognized the bulkiness of pads on her shoulders.

_What for_, she wondered. She started to lift her arm. Where was her arm? Her brain didn't want to accept the mounting evidence that there was something wrong, so horribly wrong, that the actions of a stupid and petty boy had enormous, unwanted repercussions to her life, and her future.

She tried to move her hands and fingers. There was nothing. Her brain sent out commands that were not received, because the intended recipient of said messages simply no longer existed. No fingers to wiggle, no hands to form into fists, no elbows to try to brace herself and rise from the bed.

She hadn't been able to scream before, but now she did. Anger, shock, horror, pain, bewilderment, and confusion melded together in a mire of emotion that very nearly shattered her mind as she opened her mouth, shrieks filling the room and pouring out of it.

o0o0o0o

They'd tried to save her arms, she was told. The doctor had attempted to salvage as much flesh as he could, but her arms had been so charred that amputation had been the only viable option. She had severe burn scars along her shoulders, and the doctor had told her it was a miracle she was still alive.

"But I have no arms! That is no miracle!' she argued. Her mother wept in the corner.

The doctor couldn't respond to that.

o0o0o0o

The aftermath of the incident showed Ming-Hua just how unjust the world could be. She learned at a younger age than most children how cruel life could be, with the loss of her father, her mother's health issues, and their long poverty. Even then, she'd remained optimistic. She tried to be a good girl, and to work hard at her studies and Bending, and helping her mother. Growing up in this city, she was not the naif that her father was. She had a future, and would one day support herself, and her mother, and if she had a family, support them as well.

How was she supposed to do that now? She was a cripple, someone who couldn't feed or wash herself, or do the most basic things that countless living souls took for granted.

Not only that, but those responsible for the loss of her arms went by unpunished. Yinrong and his two friends lied, telling the police that she was the one who had lured them to the site in an attempt to seduce them, changed her mind, and ran away.

Yinrong's father was also the grocer who provided the food to the family that employed her mother as their maid. Not only that, but the man was also cousin to the wife of the family, and with enough money, Yinrong went unpunished while she was labeled as a tease and a whore – such a label for a girl who had barely just begun to bud into a woman – and money did for them what honesty didn't for her. Wen was pressured by his father into changing his story, so it was Ming-Hua and her mother on their own.

Her mother lost her job, the family saying that they could not allow the mother of a girl of such ill-repute to tarnish their household with her mere presence.

It wasn't as if _everyone_ believed that Yinrong was blame-free. Ming-Hua hadn't been the only person he bullied, but what could other children do for her?

Their neighbors tried to help. Mother would do odd jobs around the building for rent and to pay the medical bills – something that Yinrong's family should have been responsible for – but the spectre of her father's bad luck seemed to haunt them.

Dealing with the ostracism, especially since it was undeserved, became too much for her mother. She cursed this city, and decided it was time to go back North.

o0o0o0o

Being back in the city of her birth should have been welcome to the armless girl. After all, she was with family again, and unlike most of the citizens in the Earth Kingdom city, her family believed everything she and her mother told them.

Nonetheless, it rankled her to feel their stares of pity. Without arms, how could she Bend? How could she support herself, or lead a normal life? They would take care of her, and she should have been happy for that, but she didn't want to be a charity case. She didn't want to be tolerated and tended to merely out of familial duty.

Weeks turned to months, and Ming-Hua learned how to use her feet for certain things. She managed a limited semblance of independence, but not much was expected of her. Who would want a bride with no arms? She was expected to be a burden on her family for the rest of her life. Her aunts, uncles, and cousins tried to be kind to her, but she could still see, and feel their pity as they regarded her, especially if assisting her with something she was unable to do for herself.

o0o0o0o

Self-pity slowly ebbed away over the next few years, giving way to rage and depression. The things that'd happened to her father, and to her, were committed by people who had gotten away with their crimes unpunished, while her mother was left with the burden of widowhood and caring for a disabled child. Yet, what could she do about it?

What she missed most of all was her Bending. So much had been taken from her, including the ability to manipulate and enjoy her element. She was surrounded by it, in the form of water and snow and ice, yet she could no longer even have the simple pleasure of rolling up snow in her hands, or feeling the coolness of ice under her fingertips.

All because of the cruel, thoughtless action of a boy who thought himself better than her, merely because he had more money than her. And to add insult to injury – an understatement if there ever was one – he suffered no repurcussions for his actions. Here, had he been a member of the Water Tribe, he would have been expected to become her steward, giving her the use of his arms for whatever she might need, and the entire community would make sure he compensated for such a heinous crime.

o0o0o0o

Her sixteenth birthday came and went, and her melancholy and rage deepened with each passing day. Her mother was an attractive woman even if she looked worn, and Ming-Hua knew that if she wasn't in the picture, there were men in the city who would be happy to marry the widow. However, no one wanted the burden of an armless step-daughter. She couldn't help but feel bad for her mother, even though Mother kept reassuring her that it was not her fault, that her situation was not her fault. She appreciated her mother's efforts, but the truth was hard to deny. She might not have arms, but she did have eyes and ears.

No one wanted an armless wife either, so when her birthday came and went without any marriage proposals, she was not the least bit surprised, even though she had to admit to herself that it did hurt. All people saw when they looked at her was the 'poor armless girl', and that was it. And people wondered why she preferred to be alone.

She would often go off by herself, despite her mother's worry about the relative helplessness her armless state brought her. She didn't like being around people because she knew they pitied her. It was easier just being by herself, and she'd learned to compensate for not having the use of her arms to balance her should she stumble, and she'd also learned to navigate the ground more carefully with her feet.

One thing that calmed her was the ocean. Watching the waves crash on the shore provided her with a welcome distraction to her melancholia, yet sometimes she couldn't help but feel frustrated that she no longer had mastery over her element. She could feel it around her, but could do nothing about it!

It was a mild spring day – mild being a relative word at the North Pole – and she felt the sunlight on her face as she looked out at the water. Her mother had clad her warmly in a parka, and she was feeling too warm – yet she couldn't remove the garment, at least not without a ridiculous amount of effort.

She so longed to splash some of that cold seawater on her forehead, but she did not dare lean too far lest she fall into the water. How could she swim without arms?

Damn this. Damn everything. Death would have been kinder for her than this... existence. That was all she did, exist. She'd considered killing herself many times before, and if she was conscious of anything that stopped her from doing this, it would be the grief her mother would feel over the loss of her remaining child.

There had to be more to life than this. If she were to be happy at all, she needed more control over her life, but how was that going to happen? So much had been taken from her on that terrible day. As she thought about it, her rage kept building, bubbling under the surface. Unlike her mother, who had been so beaten down by life that she seemed incapable of anger, Ming-Hua embraced her own, unable to let go of the maelstrom of emotions that ebbed and flowed through the last few years. It was almost like a high for her, that surge of anger she felt at times, red-hot and blinding, searing through her almost like the lightning that had almost killed her.

She was blushing now from her rage, and the warmth of the parka was suddenly too stifling for comfort. If she had arms, she would just take it off and toss it aside! Why did she have to be so damn warm? That water looked so cool and refreshing, and if she could only reach out to cup it, and splash it on her face, and...

She blinked as she felt water dripping from her chin. The ocean breeze blew on skin that was now wet, and she shivered.

_Did I really do that?_ Bending was supposed to come from a desire to manipulate that element, and the art itself was essentially exercising your will over said element. She'd wanted water on her face, and she got it. She looked around, just to make sure that no one else had done it.

She took a deep breath, and tried to Bend some more water. Nothing happened. It'd been nearly five years since she'd Bended at all, She started to feel angry and frustrated again.

Damn you! She glared at the water, as if it had personally decided to affront her by not responding to her attempts to Bend it. This time, the water moved as she wanted it to.

o0o0o0o

Ming-Hua decided to keep this a secret from her family, even her mother. She went off on her own whenever she could, and found out that her pent-up rage, hatred, and frustration actually helped her to channel her control.

She imagined her will extending through the stumps at her shoulders, and learned to form new arms for herself. These arms were short and rudimentary at first, and she was only able to hold her will over them for several seconds before they disintegrated.

Almost daily, she would observe the lessons of the Waterbenders, sitting off to the side and watching the teachers and students Bend at various levels of proficiency.

In this endeavor, she found that she could use pity to her advantage. The teachers left her alone, what harm was there in letting a young armless woman watch the lessons? It wasn't as if she had much else to do anyway, being armless meant that she was unable to do most of the chores expected of any ordinary person. She spent some time in the healing huts as well, but much preferred combat-style Waterbending. Soon enough she became such a regular fixture at teaching sessions that no one commented on her presence anymore, or even seemed to notice her, and the lessons went on. She listened with a keen ar to everything that could be said about Waterbending, internalizing it and applying it to her own private practice sessions.

So she watched, observed, studied, and practiced. She learned to manipulate her water-arms for longer, seconds quickly turning to minutes, and then even to hours. Arms that had barely been half a foot when she first learned how to make water-arms for herself, grew to several, and then even dozens of feet, giving her a reach that no armed person could ever imagine.

It took many years for one to become a Master of any Bending art. By the time she neared her nineteenth birthday, she was able to perform the most advanced moves and techniques she'd observed in lessons. Her new arms also allowed her to move in such a way that an ordinary person would have found impossible. She could scale ice-cliffs, bound from one ice-floe to another, and even use her arms to swing from one outcrop to another in movements much like a monkey's. She could launch herself into the air, and give herself a safe landing.

She was confident that she could defeat the Masters in the city, but she held back from that. She hadn't pushed herself to master her element just so she could challenge the teachers. She'd done it for herself.

o0o0o0o

Not long after her eighteenth birthday, Ming-Hua had noticed that her mother seemed more sickly of late. She would go to the healing-huts and come back better for a while, but inevitably she would worsen. She would insist she was fine when any concern was addressed to her, but Ming-Hua knew her mother well enough to know that there was something wrong.

Inevitably, there came the point where her mother could no longer deny it. She had an illness that not even a master healer could dispel. Such diseases were known, and dreaded, for their slow, difficult decline. Though the family didn't come out and say it, Ming-Hua knew that they dreaded the day where care of the armless woman would pass from her mother to her in-laws. They would take her in and see to it that she had what she needed, but it was only out of a sense of duty, and little else. She knew she was not the most pleasant or friendly person to be with, given her long silences and anti-social tendencies, though she did her best to be polite and respectful.

Now that she could Bend again, she didn't need her in-laws. She could take care of herself, though of course no one knew that. She'd worked so hard for nearly three years to master her Bending in secret. She knew that if people could see what she was capable of, she would draw admiration and awe, but she wasn't interested in that.

Ming-Hua was silent as her aunt attended to her mother, bringing her some hot soup and tea as she rested in bed during one of her bad days. She sat on a stool near the bed, waiting for her aunt to leave.

"Everything all right? You need anything?" the older woman asked her niece. Ming-Hua shook her head, and her aunt left the small house that Ming-Hua shared with her mother. Some of her family lived next door, or in other houses down the block, so there was always someone on hand to help the poor widow and her armless child.

"Oh, Ming-Hua." Her mother's voice was a whisper, and Ming-Hua looked back at her. She knew she had gotten her looks from her mother, the long, straight black hair and the pale skin. Both of them were attractive by conventional standards, even though one had no arms and the other one had illness and exhaustion etched into her face.

"Is something the matter, Mother?" she asked. She was able to take care of her mother in some ways, using her mouth or feet, or a rod with a hook attached to the end of it that could be facilitated for certain tasks like dressing herself that she held with her teeth.

"I worry about you. You're my daughter and no matter what happened to you, I would take care of you. Now I can not even do that."

"I can take care of myself."

This brought a wan smile to Mother's face. "You have done well in terms of... learning to live with..." She paused before she continued, "It has not been easy for you, and no one in their right mind would hold this..." She glanced at one of her daughter's shoulders, "against you for not being able to do certain things. You have your family to watch over you. They will not abandon you."

"They're not too keen on the idea of taking care of me, either." Ming-Hua replied with a touch of bitterness in her voice. "You know how they look at me. How everyone looks at me." Even her own mother looked at her that way sometimes, when she thought Ming-Hua wasn't looking, but the armless woman was tactful enough to not point that out.

The older woman was silent for several moments, and Ming-Hua was happy that she wasn't saying some useless thing to try to cheer her daughter up.

"I have something to show you, but you must promise to not tell anyone!" Ming-Hua said, filling the silence.

Her mother raised her eyebrow, but nodded. Ming-Hua rose to her feet and twirled around, ice from the walls liquefying into water and forming the prostheses that she'd mastered.

A soft gasp escaped her mother's lips as Ming-Hua smirked. "You have a fever, Mother. Let me soothe you." She raised one of her water-arms and gently laid the tip of it across her mother's forehead.

"How did you... when..."

"Almost three years ago, something happened when I was on one of my walks that made me realize I hadn't lost my Bending, after all. So I practiced on my own, and..."

"That's why you kept watching the Water Masters." her mother concluded.

"Yes. I practiced everything I saw. It was not always easy, but these arms are even better than my old ones. I can climb cliffs. I can move from one ice floe to another. I can shoot myself into the air and give myself a safe landing. I can even create an octopus. I can do anything the Water Masters can do."

"Why didn't you tell me? I can't Bend, but you know I would have done what I could to help you."

"I... wanted to do this by myself." Even Ming-Hua couldn't answer that question clearly. Was it because she was afraid of the other students or even the Water Masters making fun of her? Was it because she had not been sure of her own capabilities back then? She had to admit to herself that when she realized she could still Bend, doing so without arms would be a challenge, and she had not been sure if that would limit her in any way.

Of course, she had went beyond any perceived limitations, but back then she didn't know that. If there had indeed been any limitations, then she need not embarrass herself in front of others. As she mastered her element more and more, she had merely stayed the course. "Back then, I was just so surprised, and was not sure how others would react or what I might or might not be able to do, and..."

"I understand." Mother seemed to enjoy having the water-arm on her forehead. With a bit of focus, Ming-Hua shaped the tip into a rudimentary hand, it's 'palm' covering more of Mother's skin. "So what do you intend to do?"

Ming-Hua gave her mother a tight smile. "Revenge."

Her mother let out a slow breath. "I know I should tell you that revenge is petty, that it accomplishes nothing, that hatred festers in people like poison and all that, but..." She took a slow breath as she stared at her daughter. "What was done to your father, and you... was not inconsequential."

Ming Hua closed her eyes for a moment, happy that her mother was not condemning her for it. To be frank, she would have wanted revenge regardless of her mother's feelings, but it did help that Mother seemed to be trying her best to understand her daughter and her motives.

"I have long prayed that the men who hurt my husband... and the boys who hurt you... would face consequences. It is clear to me that I will see no recompense for my husband's death. But you have a chance to strike against those who wronged you. For what was done to you, I would be wrong to tell you to not feel angry about it. How could someone possibly... let go or forgive something like this?"

Ming-Hua smiled. Her mother reached out with a hand, and Ming-Hua raised her other arm, forming a hand on this one as well. She took her mother's hand in her own, wrapping watery fingers around it.

"I have only one thing to say, daughter of mine. Be careful in how you execute your vengeance. Do not let it be your downfall."

o0o0o0o

Her mother died several months later, and after the funeral rites and mourning had been observed, Ming-Hua packed what she needed and disappeared from the city, presumably on one of her walks. A search would be conducted, of course, but soon enough people would conclude that she had either drowned or fallen into a ravine. Her family would not say it outright, but they would be relieved, telling themselves that her suffering was over and she was in a better place.

Mother certainly was in a better place. She would be with Father, and the two of them could be happy together. Ming-Hua knew that in due time, she would see them again, but she was in no rush. She had too much to do, and accomplish in this world.


End file.
